I believe there are very real and valid concerns on both sides of the President Trump Immigration Executive Order (IEO) issue. As a common-ground conservative Christian, I struggle with the concerns on both sides. I want the USA to help as many immigrants and refugees as possible while also preserving the security and values of the country and its citizenry. How do we reach a balance? It is my strong belief we must seek common ground and then compromise to a common solution.

As a starting point, I hope we can all agree the Presidency of our country is a very, very difficult job. What an understatement. How would you like to have the enormous responsibility and burden, even for a day, of keeping 320 million people including 50 million immigrants safe and secure in the USA borders? And, while doing that, also registering 1 million immigrants plus 85 thousand refugees a year in the USA? No simple task.

With these impressive numbers, it’s difficult for me to understand how someone can call the USA anti-immigration.

In a democracy, which can be messy at times, we don’t have to like each other’s varied political ideologies, but for the good of all, we in the USA must unite as partners with our current government and work together to discover common ground solutions on immigration. The health of our country depends on it.

My observation is that President Trump always opens a deal negotiation with hyperbole, but I do believe underneath all the hype and theatrics, he is pro-immigration and will look for common ground solutions going forward. In my opinion, for President Trump it is all about opening a “business deal” with an outrageous stake-in-the-ground.  Such an opening action leaves plenty of wiggle-room to compromise during negotiation.

I don’t think it is a zero-sum (win-lose) game for him, rather a positive-sum (win-win). And, in case an executive order doesn’t become more reasonable during negotiation, we have three equal branches of government that provide checks and balances for extreme cases. As I write this article, the second version of the IEO has already been launched. It appears that some of the more contentious points of the first have been eliminated or modified.  That is a step forward.

Unfortunately, based on social media comments and news/opinion publications I’ve read recently, not everyone is ready to look beyond differences and seek common ground solutions. Across our great country, there is a hardened ideological resistance against the current President and his cabinet that is wider and deeper than I’ve ever seen before in the USA.

I know the current political climate has gotten all of us “off our game,” but I think it unfortunate that some of this activism type resistance is coming from leaders in Christian organizations.

For example, I have read derogatory remarks from Christian pastors and organizational leaders about Franklin Graham and his Christian organizations, Samaritan’s Purse and Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). As best I can tell, the reasons for these remarks against Franklin Graham center primarily on statements he made in support of the President Trump IEO.  It is never good in my mind when church leaders in the same “body of Christ” universal church denigrate others in the body who are ultimately working for the same goals, i.e., loving God and loving neighbors around the world.

Personally, I’m just not ready to throw out all the good deeds (great commandment) and gospel story-telling (great commission) Franklin Graham and his Christian organizations have done in the Kingdom of God on earth because of a few disagreements on theology, methodology, and personal politics.

In my opinion, Franklin’s statements can be too easily misinterpreted through thin-slicing of only the highly inflammatory words of his statements. For instance, Franklin said, “It’s not a biblical command for the country to let everyone in who wants to come, that’s not a Bible issue.” If one’s attention is drawn only to the words “not let in country…not Bible issue,” it’s easy to see why people of Christian faith would have a problem with the statement. Factoring in the phrase “not…everyone in who wants to come” makes a material difference in the interpretation of his statement.

It is clear to me that Franklin Graham was saying allow access through a legal immigration process to the peace-loving people of the world who share the USA values, but exclude all those “who want to come in” so they can do harm to the USA way of life,  e.g., ISIS.

I believe God gave the government, not the church, the responsibility to establish sovereign borders (Ezekiel 47:13-23; Proverbs 22:28) and maintain order/safety for the citizens in those borders (Romans 13:4).  The most practical and compassionate way of doing that is though USA immigration laws and policies determining which immigrants and refugees share the USA’s social, economic, and governmental values.  For sustainability of our country’s societal-values health, it is reasonable that we must also determine how many immigrants can be successfully assimilated into the USA annually without causing irreparable harm to our society’s macro systems.

While I believe immigration and border security are primarily “state” issues, there is also an ancillary Biblical/compassion responsibility expressed in Matthew 25:31-40 that should be a ballast.  The church, “the body with Christ as head,” is responsible for setting an example in the world (salt and light), speaking boldly, and shining light on Jesus’ commands such as “when I was a stranger (foreigner/Hebrew nocri) you invited me in.”

I take Jesus’ words literally, “when you do this to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you are doing it to me.” Jesus did not set a cumulative acceptable count of these ones for the USA for a year.  He left it to us to make that determination based on what is practical for sustainability so we can continue to help others in the future.

It doesn’t make practical and logical sense to me that He meant everyone “who wants to come in” must be received. To help others, we must first be healthy ourselves by vetting and only receiving immigrants/refugees who want to live in peace and harmony with the citizens of the USA. This is not a new process instituted by President Trump. This is the process we’ve had in place for a long line of Presidents.

Unfortunately, our immigration laws have not kept up with the times over the past several decades.

Because of this, I think it makes sense for the USA to take a temporary respite via President Trump’s IEO to see how well the national security policies and procedures are working since 9/11.  Also, the US Congress which has failed to act for decades on immigration must update our immigration laws.

Have we learned new things over the past 15 years since 9/11 that will make our USA immigration law, policies and procedures better? We certainly should have, and we need to apply them.

How we go about improving our immigration law, policies and procedures is a subject for discussion, which should occur with common goals in mind, e.g., protection of general human rights for all peace-loving people of the world and the protection of USA National security and sustainability.

All involved in creating immigration law solutions should have the attitude of (1) respect for diverse points of view, (2) listen first and then seek to be heard, and (3) seek common ground solutions for the common good.